


A Waking Dream

by Kalkasar (Mordhena)



Series: Dreams [2]
Category: Star Trek: Enterprise
Genre: Angst, Episode: s01e22 Vox Sola, Feelings Realization, M/M, Stream of Consciousness, Telepathic Link, no happy ending in sight
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-07
Updated: 2020-10-07
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:42:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26882344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mordhena/pseuds/Kalkasar
Relationships: Malcolm Reed/Charles "Trip" Tucker III
Series: Dreams [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1960810
Kudos: 16





	A Waking Dream

_'Is he all right? - Are they going to be all right? - Is Rostov alive? - I'll  
call a medical team! - He's safe...he's safe...thank God. - Should I  
touch him? - Is he going to be ok? - Is it over? - Where am I? - What  
happened? - T'Pol?'_  
  
A jumble of confused voices filled his head and the commander groaned.  
The clamor made his head hurt. _“Be quiet. Please!”_  
  
Trip stirred and opened his eyes. Hoshi crouched beside him.  
she smiled when he looked at her.  
  
"Are you all right, Commander? Don't try to get up. The medical team is on  
their way."  
  
Trip stared into her eyes for a moment as he tried to make sense of the  
thousand and one thoughts and feelings that clamored for  
attention. He felt as though he could hear and feel inside of every person  
in the room.  
  
Someone was missing. One of the voices that had come through stronger than  
the others. Trip rolled to his side looking around with eyes that refused to  
focus. He had to find the owner of that voice, it was important.  
  
 _'We reached for him, we wanted to embrace him. We wanted to take away the  
solitude... but we could not touch him. He stopped us when we tried. He  
did not want to be one.'_ Trip blinked, struggling to make his eyes focus as  
he searched the cargo bay. Trip groaned with the anguish attached to  
those thoughts. Loss, desolation, confusion.  
  
Suddenly, he found himself lost in gentle grey eyes that met his own.  
 _'Malcolm.'_ Trip drew a deep breath as their eyes met. Malcolm's was the  
voice he had heard - the one who thanked God that he was safe. Trip stared  
into the lieutenant's eyes; he blinked and parted his lips to speak.  
  
Malcolm smiled at him and then turned away.  
  
 _'No!'_ Trip pushed weakly against the floor, trying to rise,  
but Hoshi held him down. He could only watch helplessly as Malcolm  
spoke briefly to a crewman and the two men left the cargo bay.  
  
 _'He did not want to be one.'_  
  
Trip closed his eyes with a small moan and sank down on the floor. He was  
too weak right now to even think straight, much less try and work out the  
jumble of thoughts and emotions. At least, he noted with relief,  
the myriad of voices that had flooded in on him initially was subsiding.  
  


* * *

  
  
Released from the sickbay hours later, Trip walked the halls of the ship  
restlessly. He'd been advised to go to his quarters and rest, but he couldn’t.  
He felt a dull sense of something that was not quite  
loneliness, but not a pleasant sensation either. It had plagued him since  
the entity in cargo bay two had gently lowered him to the floor.  
  
 _Separateness._ That was the only word he could find that even came close to  
being applicable.  
  
Trip sighed, pacing the too-quiet halls of this too-empty ship. He was  
alone, and he didn't like it.  
  
 _Alone- it was wrong. We reached for him, we wanted to embrace him. We wanted  
to take away the solitude... but we could not touch him. He stopped us  
when we tried. He did not want to be one._  
  


Tucker stopped in his tracks as the voices - it was  
more than one voice, neither male nor female but somehow both, echoed in  
his mind again. He blinked and shook his head.  
  
Phlox had told him that he might retain some memories of the experience.  
That such a joining of minds was often permanent, but that it was also  
harmless and may fade with time.  
  
Strange how Jon didn't seem to have those memories; neither did Rostov,  
Kelly, or Zabel. He had asked them if they remembered anything about reaching out  
to someone who wouldn't allow them to touch, and all had denied it.  
  
He rubbed a hand over his face and walked on. Before too long his restless  
feet carried him to the one place that had always been a haven. He felt  
the tension ease from his shoulders as he stepped into engineering and was  
instantly surrounded by the deep, resonant throb of _Enterprise's_ heartbeat.  
  
It was like re-entering the womb sometimes. Although Trip didn't recall back  
that far, he imagined that the all-pervading throb of the engine would feel  
pretty close to the beat of a mother's heart to a fetus.  
  
Climbing the ladder to the upper level of engineering Trip rested his head  
against the side of the warp drive. He closed his eyes, letting the gentle  
beats pulse through his body. It was almost the sensation he wanted. He  
could almost imagine the soft enveloping tendrils of _The One_ surrounded him  
and he felt his breathing ease.  
  
 _'Get outta here! Trip stared into terror filled grey eyes as he struggled  
against the tendrils that caught and held him. He watched the sharp  
features of the Armory officer, as the man seemed to freeze, horror evident  
in his face as their eyes met.  
  
Zabel scrambled up a ladder but was too slow and the tendrils caught him.  
There was a desperate struggle for a few moments before Mark was dragged  
from the ladder, his rifle clattering to the floor. Still Malcolm didn't  
move, his eyes wild with terror and the dawning light of something  
else...  
  
Go! Trip pushed every ounce of strength he possessed into that command as he  
was lifted bodily into the air and finally, Malcolm seemed to come out of  
his trance. He stumbled backwards, eyes still glued to Trip's face,  
and then he ran as though the furies pursued him, bolting for the hatch, he  
lunged through it and slammed it shut.'_  
  
"God!" Trip's eyes snapped open and he pushed himself away from the  
reassuring presence of the warp reactor; stumbling back a couple of  
paces until he was brought up short by the safety railing. His heart  
pounded uncomfortably, and the rush of his own blood in his ears drowned  
the engines.  
  
The sheer terror in Malcolm's eyes as that creature had pulled Trip off his  
feet still haunted. Trip sagged against the safety railing.  
Even more haunting was the other emotion Trip had glimpsed just  
moments before Malcolm bolted.  
  
Trip swallowed hard and closed his eyes. "Oh my God..."


End file.
